ON THE MEXICAN RESOLUTION 



SPEECH 



OF 



HON. ELIHU ROOT 



OIP N'E'W YORK 



IN THE 



SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 



APRIL 21, 1914 



41093—13227 



WASHINGTON 
1G14 



■fill 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS^ ""^ 

RECEIVED I 

MM 27 me 

DOCUMENTS DIV.c;,q^, ( 



THP96-007838 



SPEECH 

OF 

HON. ELIHU EOOT. 



The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, had under consideration 
the Joint resolution (H. J. Res. 251) justifying the employment by the 
President of the armed forces of the United States in enforcing certain 
demands against Victoriano Huerta. 

Mr. ROOT. Mr. President, I shall not prolong very mucli 
tills discussion, for I think that whatever action we take ought 
to be taken to-day without further delay. I do wish, however, 
to state the reasons for supporting the substitute offered by the 
Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Lodge] in lieu of the resolu- 
tion reported by the Committee on Foreign Relations. 

The President has asked Congress for Its approval of a cours9 
which he purposed to follow to compel amends for an insult to 
the flag of the United States. A resolution has come from the 
House declaring that the President is justified in the course he 
proposes and naming Gen. Huerta as the person against whom 
the present action is understood to be directed. The Committee 
on Foreign Relations has reported a substitute resolution which 
omits all reference by name to Gen. Huerta, but so refers to 
the statements made by the President in his address that in 
explaining the justification of the course which he proposes the 
effect is substantially the same. We are not asked to authorize 
action; we are asked to justify it. 

Mr. President, I have the highest respect — more than respect. 
I have regard and admiration — for the President of the United 
States. I have entire confidence In the sincerity of his pur- 
pose, in the lofty quality of the ideals which he pursues, and 
in the genuineness, of his adherence to peace. 

But we are asked not to express our opinion of the President 
of the United States, not to express our confidence in him or 
in his purposes. We are asked in the exercise of our duty as 
a part of the Government of the United States to declare a 
specified course of conduct under specified conditions to be 
justified. It is our duty that- we ar^-to' perfo'rm, our duty as a 
part of the Government of the United States, our duty to the 
hundred millions of people of the United States, to the com- 
munity of nations, to the credit and good name of our country, 
to the honor and glory that this great democracy has Intrusted 
to our hands as its representatives. This duty we are called 
upon to perform. 

The course which is proposed is the forcible armed compul- 
sion of the people or some of the people of a friendly nation, 
the armed compulsion of a government which I think we all 
are agreed is an existing de facto government, having in its 
conti'ol the greater part of the territory of Mexico — the armed 
compulsion of that government to make amends to the United 
States for an insult to its flag. 

What is the justification? We can not justify, sir, upon con- 
fidence which we all have in the President. We must justify 
41093—13227 3 



upon grounds which commend themselves to our consciences, to 
our intelligence, to the conscience of the American people, and 
to the deliberate judgment of the civilized world. 

What is the justification? Observe, sir, I do not say that 
there is no justification. I ask what it is. In the address of 
the President, in the plain implications and exclusive infer- 
ences of the resolution which came from the House, and equally 
in the resolution reported by the committee, the justification 
is to be found in a single incident. That incid 3nt was this : A 
boatload of sailors in the uniform of the United States, upon a 
boat flying the flag of the United States, landed the other day 
at a wharf in Tampico and were arrested by an officer in charge 
of a guard, taken through the streets, presently returned to the 
boat and set free — a very gross offense to the dignity of the 
United States, an insult which can not be ignored. 

But, sir, immediate amends were made. The action of the offi- 
cer who made the arrest was disavowed by the government under 
which he served, the de facto government of Mexico, under the de 
facto presidency of Gen. Huerta. It is stated that the officer 
was in turn arrested and was to be punished. The commandant 
at Tampico apologized for the act and, promptly upon being 
advised of the circumstance, the head of the de facto govern- 
ment. Gen. Huerta, also apologized. Those amends, which 
would be all that could be expected from private individuals, 
were, nevertheless, not satisfactory and not sufficient for the 
officer in command of the American fleet or squadron at Tam- 
pico, and he demanded a formal salute to the American flag. 

Mr. President, I agree with the admiral that the amends 
were not sufficient as coming from the de facto government and 
that there should have been a salute to the American flag, but 
it appears that there was an interposition by our Government; 
there were communications between our State Department and 
our charge in the City of Mexico, representations to the de 
facto government in Mexico, negotiations and conversations, as 
to the character of the further amends that should be made. 
The matter came plainly to be a discussion between the Gov- 
ernment of the United States and the de facto government of 
Mexico. Not about the quality of the act that was done; there 
is no dispute about that. Not about the obligation to make 
amends ; that was done. Not about the obligation to apologize ; 
the apologies were made. But about the form of further 
amends, how a salute should be fired, what were the proper 
and customary obligatory incidents in the way of returning 
such a salute, and the number of guns which should be fired. 
It is upon that dispute — upon a dispute between these two 
Goternments about the number of guns that are to be fired 
and about what the proper custom is as to returning the salute 
when it is fired — it is upon that dispute that this justification 
is made to rest in the resolution passed by the other House 
and in the resolution reported by the Committee on Foreign 
Relations of the Senate. 

Mr. President. I feel bound to say that while I would never 
for a moment fail so far as in me lay in preserving the dig- 
nity and honor of the fiag of the United States, the dispute to 
which this incident has come seems to be painfully inadequate 
to the results which are to be drawn from it. If that is all — if 

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-h 



there is nothing else except a question of the number of guns 
and the form and manner of salute — which stands between 
the hundred million people of the United States and this poor, 
harried, and distressed people, it seems to me that the occasion 
is painfully inadequate to the results that are to follow. 

Is that all? We learn to-nisht that Vera Cruz has fallen, 
that 4 American marines lie dead in that city, and that 21 
lie suffering from wounds. Is there nothing but this dispute 
about the number of guns and the form and ceremony of a 
salute to justify the sacrifice of those American lives? 

O Mr. President, deeply and sincerely as the President of 
the United States desires to limit the scope of his action, deeply 
and sincerely as he desires the maintenance of peace, all his- 
tory and human experience teach us that once lighted the fires 
of war can not be quenched at will. 

It is intervention, technically, but it is war in its essence 
that we are to vote to justify to-night. How long it will con- 
tinue, what its results and its incidents will be. no man can 
state. Men will die. men dear to us will die, because of the 
action that we are to approve to-night. American homes will 
be desolate; American women will mourn; American children 
will go through life fatherle.s.s. because of the action that we 
are to approve to-night; and when those children, grown to 
manhood, turn back the page to learn in what cause their 
fathers died, are they to find that it was about a quarrel as to 
the number of guns and the form and ceremony of a salute and 
nothing else? 

"We are to ju.stify. What is the justification? Is there none 
IJQt that? We. the representatives of the great peace-loving 
Nation: we. the representatives of the great democracy that 
prides itself upon demonstrating to the world that democracy 
can be peacefui and just: we are to justify these acts of war; 
and is there no justification that we can lay before our country- 
men, before the world, before the community of nations, before 
the judgment seat of history, except our dispute about the num- 
ber of guns and the form and method of a salute? O Mr. 
President, how inadequate! How can we justify ourselves if 
we have no justification but that? 

But, sir, that is not .ill. If it had been all, the President 
would not have come to the Congress yesterday; if it had been 
all, we would not be discussing the subject here to-night. Back 
of the incident, back of the special circumstance which forms 
the whole of the resolution reported by the committee, there is 
a great array of facts, a long, dreadful history. Mr. President, 
if there were nothing else but the incident referred to in the 
resolution, would the American Government have thought for a 
moment of treating this poor, weak country in this peremptory 
way? Such things have happened hundreds of times before. 
Ignorant subalterns have many and many a time transgressed 
the limits of propriety, mistaken their duty and their powers, 
and have done acts which were insults to great governments. 
It has often occurred in the history of the United States. What 
have we done: what would we do to-day if a subordinate officer 
in a port of England or France or Germany or Italy were to 
mistake his duty, make an arrest of American sailors, as Ameri- 
can sailors have been arrested before, and the act were dis- 
avowed by the Government he served and an apology were 
41093—13227 



6 

made, and regret was expressed, and an intention to punish him 
was expressed — what would we do about the form and method 
of further amends? Sir, in the first place, we would settle the 
facts. 

We are now engaged in signing a series of treaties designed 
to take in all the world, and already a very large number of 
nations of the world have signed, under which we agree with 
them that if there be any dispute about any question of fact a 
commission shall investigate and report, and no action shall be 
taken for one year, to allow the report to be made. We find 
here that, while our admiral reported that the American flag 
was flying on the boat, the Mexican ofiicer reported to Gen. 
Huerta that no flag was flying. I believe our admiral, but can 
we think it strange that Gen. Huerta believed his officer? If 
there were nothing else — If -this were all — should not that ques- 
tion of fact be determined by peaceful means? 

The question of the proper, appropriate, and customary form 
and method of a salute is a matter of precedent and the usage 
of nations. It is the universal custom of civilized nations to 
present in diplomatic communications the precedents, the au- 
thorities showing that the custom contended for by one country 
is the true custom and that the other country is mistaken. In 
the case that I suppose, of such an incident occurring in a port 
of France or Germany or England or Italy, sir, we would have 
presented our facts, investigated the facts, made certain and 
clear the facts, presented the authorities upon precedent and 
custom, and by peaceable and friendly communication would 
have reached a result. 

If that were all, that is what we would do. If this be all, 
is this Nation of a hundred millions, the richest upon earth, 
with its mighty power, to treat poor, weak, bankrupt, down- 
trodden, distressed, despairing Mexico in any less kindly and 
just a way? If this be all, how can we, in the arrogance of 
I)ower, justify treating this weak neighbor with a peremptory 
harshness that we would not think of using toward a powerful 
nation? 

Mr. President, what I have said is what the good people of 
our country and of the world will think if we flnish our work 
l;-night by the adoption of the resolution reported by the 
committee. There is no justiflcation for us there. No ; by 
the expression of one thing, the dispute about the salute, we 
commit ourselves to the exclusion of all other justifications. 
We commit ourselves to a condemnation that will weigh 
heavily upon the heart of many a good American who loves 
his country and her honor, and which as time goes on, and the 
judgment of the world and of the future is made up, will grow 
darker and darker. 

But, Mr. President, it is not all — it is hot all. There is mat- 
ter of justification; and the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Lodge] has sought to lay it before the people of America and of 
Mexico and of the community of nations by the recital in the 
substitute resolution which he offers. What is it? It is that 
lying behind the insult to our fiag by this poor, ignorant sub- 
ordinate are years of violence and anarchy in Mexico. Lying 
behind it are hundreds of American lives sacrificed, millions of 
American property destroyed, and thousands of Americans re- 
41093—13227 



7 

fluced to iwvertv to-day through the destruction of their prop- 
erty. Lying behind it is a condition of anarchy in Mexico 
which malves it impossible to secure, by diplomatic means, pro- 
tection for American life and property in that country. Lying 
behind it is a condition of affairs in Mexico which makes that 
country incapable of performing its international obligations. 

The insult to the flag is but a part— the culmination, if you 
please — of a long series of violations of American rights, a long 
series of violations of those rights which it is the duty of our 
country to protect— violations not, for the most part, of govern- 
ment, but made possible by the weakness of government, because 
through that country range bands of freebooters and chieftains 
like the captains of free companies, without control or responsi- 
bility. Lying back of this incident is a condition of things In 
Mexico which absolutely prevents the protection of American 
life and property except through respect for the American flag, 
the American uniform, the American Government. 

It is that which gives significance to the demand that public 
respect shall be paid to the flag of the United States. There is 
our justification. It is a justification lying not in Victoriano 
Huerta or in his Qouduct alone, but in the universal condition of 
affairs in Mexico. The real object to be attained by the course 
which we are asked to approve is not the gratification of personal 
pride ; it is not the satisfaction of an admiral or a Government. 
It is the preservation of the power of the United States to pro- 
tect its citizens under those conditions. 

If we omit from the resolution that shall be passed to-night 
all reference to the matters that are enumerated in the substi- 
tute, we omit the real object which forms the only justifica- 
tion for action. Without that, sir, upon the showing of the 
resolution reported by the committee we would be everlastingly 
wrong. With the facts that are enumerated in the substitute 
the action of the United States will rest with becoming sense 
of proportion and national dignity upon adequate foundation 
and cause. 

The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Shively] has observed, in 
effect, that the substitute resolution thunders in the index. 
Ah, Mr. President, the capture of Vera Cruz, the death of 
American citizens, the wounds and sufferings of men who lie 
there to-night demand something more than formal inducement. 
The recitals of the substitute resolution are weak in the face of 
death and wounds and sufferings of Americans in Vera Cruz. 
No less than the substitute resolution avers can justify us. 

The conclusion of the substitute resolution, sir, is the same 
as that of the other. It justifies the President in the same 
course of conduct which the committee resolution justifies, but 
it gives grounds. It gives substantial grounds. It gives grounds 
creditable to the United States and adequate for the proposed 
action, instead of leaving this momentous movement of a great 
naval and military power to rest upon no justification but a 
dispute with a weak and helpless adversary about number of 
guns and the proper ceremonies of a salute. 
41093—13227 

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